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FC Dallas Postgame

By: Adam Jardy

The Columbus Dispatch - May 12, 2012 11:18 PM

The Crew’s 2-1 victory against FC Dallas will be remembered by fans for three key plays: two good, one not so good.

First, the good. I actually missed Sebastian Miranda’s header from about 18 yards out because I was adding up just how long it had been since the Crew had last scored when I heard a loud roar. The goal was Miranda’s first for the Crew and completed the team’s first come-from-behind victory of the season.

It also ensured that Miranda would get a crowd around his locker after the game. Not surprisingly, he downplayed his achievement.

“It’s my first goal with a header,” he said. “I’ve scored shooting and other ways, but it’s my first as a header. I hit it as hard as I could. What is most important to me is we won. We needed the three points and that is better for the confidence because we’ve been playing good but we needed this.”

With road matches looming against San Jose and Seattle, defender Josh Williams said that goal portends good things ahead for the Crew.

“We know we have a daunting task coming up here, but before this bounces haven’t really been going our way (lately),” he said. “You score a 20-yard header, hopefully those soccer gods are looking out for us now and we start getting those bounces. If we keep playing this way we can play with anybody in the league. It’s just a matter of creating scoring opportunities and finishing them because right now our defense is playing good.”

Before Miranda’s goal came a blast from Justin Meram, who got the Crew on board in the 67th minute with his first career goal. I actually saw this one and, given how things have gone lately, had to rub my eyes when I saw the net move.

“I tried reading the play and it went by me and then I saw Eric (Gehrig) step up and win it,” Meram said. “I had position on the guy and took a touch and saw I had an opening and I just took a shot and luckily it went in.”

Now, the bad. Dallas’ lone goal came when Tony Tchani gave up on a play along the left touchline, allowing Fabian Castillo to break free toward the Crew goal. Head coach Robert Warzycha was asked about it twice during his press conference and he stood up for Tchani while dishing out some fault.

“You expect everybody to play until the whistle is blown,” the coach said. “That was a mistake that led to a goal, but I think in the second half he did very well. He was everywhere. He was winning 50-50s and running forward and making crosses. He wanted to be the best player on the field.”

Tchani sat dejected in front of his locker after the match, and he took to his personal Twitter account to apologize publicly.

“I felt like the whole world dropped on my head after that goal,” he wrote. “Thank God we won n I will take as a learned lesson. Sorry again for it.

"Big Homie we all make mistakes but its how we recover from them and I know your a soldier so this won't stop you at all!" he wrote.

Still Shaking – Milovan Mirosevic is a great guy to go to when trying to get a feel for the match. When I approached him tonight, he said he was still shaking a bit after the win.

“At the end of course everybody is happy but today I think we were lucky to find our moment,” he said. “Justin entered at a good time and Seba’s head helped us to finish the game but we have to work at our first half. At the moments we’re not playing good, we cannot let a goal be scored. We have to keep it until we start playing good again. For sure there is a little frustration about that but hopefully this time we had a great second half. We pushed them a lot. The red card helped a lot also. We have to put focus on our first half, I think.”

What of those yellow cards? Six were issued in the match with four going to FC Dallas.

“Those kinds of things are because of something,” Mirosevic said. “If they start making fouls it’s because we have the ball or we are playing better than them. Honestly we have been creating a lot of chances in the last 3-4 games and even when we have a lot of forwards injured. That’s something we’ve been working at. It has been very difficult for us to get the 11, especially up top. That’s something to be happy for.”

I asked captain Danny O’Rourke, who suffered an elbow to the face that was not called, for his take on the yellows and eventual red.

“I was upset because they were, I don’t know if they were cheap shots or not so I have to watch the video before I say anything, but they were elbowing a lot and it just pisses me off,” he said. “We don’t want to retaliate with anything like that but I really wanted guys to get stuck in. we just emphasized playing hard and even if we didn’t score a goal and come back and win we had to play hard and beat them off the ball.

“Obviously the red card helped out a little bit. Sometimes you go into a shell when you get a red card so I’m glad we rallied and came out on top.”